Caster



' (NoModeL) A. B. DISS.

OASTER.

* Patented 0012.8, 1889.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

ALBERT B. DISS BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.

'CASTER.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 412,484, dated October 8, 1889.

Application filed April15,

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ALBERT B.D1ss, of Brooklyn, in the county of Kings and State of New York, have invented an Improvement in Casters, of which the'following is a specification.

Casters for furniture, and especially those employed on bedsteads, are made with a jaw receivingthe roller-axis, and from the jaw a vertical pivot or pintle extends up into a socket inserted into a hole in the chair or bedstead leg.- This socket has usually been made of cast-iron in two pieces, and the castiron, being rigid, does not yield to the wood when being driven into a hole, and these castings usually are rough and inequalities upon the edges prevent the halves of the socket setting together with uniformity, and sometimes the furniture-leg is split in consequence of the socket being too large to drive properly into place.

In cases where a flexible shank of sheet metal has been used for connecting the caster to the leg it was not adapted to the reception of the pintle of the caster.

My invention relates to a socket made of a strip of sheet metal with a central hole for the free passage of thecaster-pintle, and the end portions trough shape and contracted and brought together at the upper ends for supporting the pintle.

In the drawings, Figure 1 is a vertical section of the socket and elevation of the caster complete. Fig. 2 is a plan view of the strip of metal made use of previous to its being bent up. Fig. 3 shows a strip as bent with the half-round tapering ends. Fig. 4 is an exterior elevation of the socket complete, and Fig. 5 is a plan view of the same.

. The roller or wheel A, jaw B, and tapering pintle O are of ordinary character and of any desired size. The socket for the pintle, to which my invention relates, is made of the strip D of sheet metal, preferably iron, having a central hole 2 punched therein of a size corresponding to the size of the pintle O at its junction with thetop surface of the jaw B, and in the edges of the strip of sheet metal notches 3 3 are cut, and then the end portions of the strip of metal are bent up into the shape of semicircular tapering troughs, as at 5, and the extreme end portions of the sheet metal are contracted, as seen at 6, so that when these 1239. SerialNo. 307,211. (No model.)

trough-shaped portions are bent up toward each, other they form a tapering socket for the reception of the pintle O, and the upper portions of the socket, at 6, receive the smaller or upper end of the pintle, so that it is properly steadied thereby, but allowed to revolve freely within this portion of the socket. It is now to be understood that when the hole is bored for the reception of the socket that hole is of uniform diameter, or nearly so, throughout its length, and it is considerably larger than the upper end of the pintle-O; hence if the edges of the strip of sheet metal made use of in forming the socket were cut off tapering this portion of the socket would be loose within the hole in the bedstead or furniture leg; but in consequence of the strip of metal being of uniform width, or nearly so, throughout, the edges of the strip project at each side of the half-socket recess 6 sufficient to drive tightly into the hole, and hence the inner and upper end of the socket is supported firmly within the hole in the furniture-leg, and at the same time the sheet metal composing the socket can yield or spring as it is driven into place, so that the wood of the leg will not be split, neither will the socket be contracted in such a manner as to become too small for the pintle, because in stamping up the sheet metal with dies into the proper form the compound curve between the half-circle trough and the nearly flat surface of the metal at the edges of the strip allow for the metal to be bent slightly in the act of driving without the socket thereby being contracted unduly, and in consequence of the pintle turning within the hole 2 of the sheet-metal socket the pintle bears but'little, if at all, against the interior of the half-circle tapering socket adjacent to such hole 2, and the pintle is free to turn the weight of the bedstead or other article resting bodily upon the jaw of the caster by the flat plate, through which the hole 2 passes.

I claim as my invention- 1. The combination, with the caster-roller A, jaw B, and pintle C, of a sheet-metal socket formed in one piece, having aflat center with a hole 2 through it, and the end portions bent into semicirculartapering troughs andbrought together at their upper ends for receiving and supporting the pintle C, substantially as set forth.

2. The sheet-metal socket for a caster-pintle, formed of sheet metal in one piece, having a central hole 2, notched at 3, bent to form semicircular troughs at 5, and having the contracted semicircular bearings at 6, with the edge portions of the sheet metal projecting outside the semicircular bearings and adapted to be received Within the hole in the 10 bedstead or other leg, substantially as set forth.

Signed by me this 10th day of April, 1889.

ALBERT B. DISS. Witnesses:

' GEO. T. PINOKNEY, WILLIAM G. MOTT. 

